Steve Jobs: Customers Don't Seem Interested in Music Subscriptions
According to Jobs "never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it". The article suggests that he is unlikely to give into pressure from record labels to offer a subscription model for music on iTunes.
The news comes as Apple begins re-negotiating contracts with the major record labels for the music content on iTunes. Despite recent rumors that Apple was seriously considering a subscription based model, Jobs insists that "people want to own their music." This has been a consistent stance for Apple since the launch of the iTunes store.
Meanwhile, Apple is expected to push for the elimination of digital rights management protections (DRM) on more songs. EMI and Apple first announced that EMI's catalog would become available on iTunes without DRM in May. According to Jobs the other music companies are "thinking very hard about it right now."
"We've said by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions," Jobs said. "I think we're going to achieve that."
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Edit: it got fixed.
1. Lower quality, DRM'd "rented music."
2. DRM-free, higher price, higher bitrate music.
To me, I like iTunes just the way it is, and being able to keep my music is quite preferable to "renting it." Movies on the other hand...
EDIT: Need to clarify. Not my music, but the music which I choose to purchase.
MUSIC = BUY
MOVIES = RENT
Blockbuster got it right years ago. No need to try and reinvent the wheel.
people who subscribe to online music stores don't own the music they download? i was under the impression that you pay a monthly fee and you could download as many tracks/albums as you wanted... :confused:
Most of 'em require that you continue your subscription to keep your music alive. Quit paying, music goes bye-bye.
Most of 'em require that you continue your subscription to keep your music alive. Quit paying, music goes bye-bye.
that's awful... i would never sign up for that... i'm surprised this is the way of online music subscription, and i'm surprised people actually subscribe... but i suppose that "Audio Hijack Pro" would come in handy with subscriptions...;)
that's awful... i would never sign up for that... i'm surprised this is the way of online music subscription, and i'm surprised people actually subscribe... but i suppose that "Audio Hijack Pro" would come in handy with subscriptions...;)
I think that if they made subscription a part of iTunes, you would certainly see at least some upward shift in the number of people learning to use such programs/making similar free programs available that would better streamline the process of recording ("stealing") the "rented" songs.
This process is actually really easy to do on most Windows XP computers without special software, you simply select the stereo mix as the source (checkbox in the XP recording volume control panel) and record away. I thought it was interesting to see that this feature is not available in OS X, and even more interesting that you can't do it on a Mac running Windows either, at least using the audio driver provided by Apple.
Sure, it doesn't make sense for the masses, but it wouldn't harm anything having more choices for the consumer.
I'd maybe sign up for a subscription service if Apple did so. It'd be great to be able to download all these new albums that come out without any risk. Sure once I stop paying I don't have the music anymore but I also would have access to 3 million + songs at any time.
I agree with all the first two comments I read. I want to OWN my music. I'll listen to a song countless times. Movies on the other hand would be better off rented. I don't like the BUYING movie concept. You are going to watch a movie a few times max, and that MIGHT be in a 3 year time span.
MUSIC = BUY
MOVIES = RENT
Blockbuster got it right years ago. No need to try and reinvent the wheel.
This is only because this is the type of person YOU are.
Remember this it's important. I prefer to own my movies If I suddenly feel like watching a movie 2 months from now I have to pay out cash again to see it full price for a rental when I maybe only want to see a clip of it like 15 mins worth.
I will rent movies but I much prefer to own them.
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